1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a chip data providing system used where an inspection enterprise inspects chips, and provides chip data representative of the quality of each of the chips to indicate whether each of the chips is good or defective to assembly enterprises that assemble semiconductor integrated circuits using the chips that have completed inspection, and to a chip data providing server used therefore.
2. Related Art
A conventional production process of semiconductor integrated circuits is shown in FIG. 6. As shown in FIG. 6, in the production of semiconductor integrated circuits, first, pre-processing, such as, epitaxial growth, channel formation, electrode formation, and the like (processing steps) with a semiconductor wafer are conducted in step S1. Next, a probe inspection is conducted in step S2 by using probes to check whether each chip formed on the semiconductor wafer is good or defective.
When the probe inspection is completed, in step S3, the semiconductor wafer is divided in each chip, and post-processing (assembly steps), such as, a die bonding process, wire bonding process, sealing process, and the like are conducted to the chips of good quality. In addition, in step S4, a final test is conducted to finally inspect whether each of the assembled semiconductor integrated circuits is good or defective.
According to a method conventionally used, ink is coated on chips of defective quality in the probe inspection of step S2, and an apparatus in the assembly steps in step S3 reads whether or not ink is coated on the chips, and good quality chips that are not coated with ink are retrieved. However, the method of coating ink on chips of defective quality is costly because it uses ink, and, in addition, needs time to dry the ink. Accordingly, at present, another method is used wherein, in the probe inspection in step S2, instead of coating ink, chip data indicating the quality of each of the chips is generated, and good quality chips are retrieved based on the chip data in the assembly steps in step S3.
However, when the assembly enterprise that assembles semiconductor integrated circuits is a different enterprise from the inspection enterprise that conducts the probe inspection on the chips, chip data is provided by using e-mail, fax, or the like among the person in charge in the inspection enterprise and the person in charge in the assembly enterprise, and therefore only the specific person in charge who receives the e-mail, the fax or the like can understand the information concerning the quality. In particular, when personnel changes, such as, changes of the person in charge frequently take place, the necessity for succeeding the management of chip data takes place. In addition, when there are multiple assembly enterprises, and the chip data formats in the assembly enterprises are different from one another, there is a problem in that errors can easily occur when the chip data is generated.
As a related technology, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application 2003-92239 (Pages 1 and 3, FIG. 1) describes a production system of semiconductor products which can more securely maintain or improve the yield of products. According to the production system of semiconductor products, the yield of products can be more securely maintained or improved by timely obtaining inspection data. However, the document does not describe a probe inspection step to inspect whether each chip formed on a semiconductor wafer is good or defective by using probes, or chip data that indicates the quality of each chip.
In view of the above-described problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide a chip data providing system in which, even when an inspection enterprise and an assembly enterprise are different enterprises, and, in addition, there are a plurality of assembly enterprises, chip data representing the quality of each chip can be smoothly provided to the assembly enterprises, and a chip data providing server used therefore.